(Photo: Getty Images)
With Call the Midwife returning to PBS Sunday (March 20), we're making one of its stars, Jenny Agutter, our British Icon of the Week. Here are 10 of the things we admire and appreciate about this enduringly popular actress.
1. She appeared in the classic British children's movie The Railway Children.
Agutter was just 18 when she starred in the fondly remembered 1970 film. She plays Bobbie Waterbury, the eldest child of a family who move to a rundown cottage near a Yorkshire railway station when their father is accused of being a spy. Agutter will reprise her role in a sequel, The Railway Children Return, due for release later this year.

2. She is a key player on Call the Midwife.
Agutter has played strong and sturdy Sister Julienne in all 11 seasons of the London-set period drama. During an interview with the i, Agutter revealed that she based her character on a nun who helped her sick mother. 
"She was always up, everything was positive. Anything that was difficult, there would always be something about it that you could draw from," Agutter recalled. "I actually went to see her before starting work on Call the Midwife and said to her: 'Well, what do you do when things are difficult?' and she looked really puzzled and she said: 'Well, you just get on. You don’t try to solve it, you just get on with it.'"

3. She has dipped her toes into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Agutter plays Councilwoman Hawley in 2012's The Avengers and 2014's Captain America: The Winter Soldier. In the clip below, Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow disguises herself as Councilwoman Hawley in order to ambush an adversary, which gives Agutter a chance to show off her action chops.

4. For around 15 years from the early 1970s to late 1980s, she lived and mainly worked in Los Angeles. 
During this period, she balanced movie work with guest appearances in TV series including The Six Million Dollar Man, Murder She Wrote, Magnum PI, and The Twilight Zone. She also enjoyed the U.S. attitude toward professional success. "Many people go to L.A. and hate it. I didn’t," Agutter told the Radio Times. "I like the openness and the 'can do' attitude. In America it’s 'can do,' until it fails. In England it fails, until you 'can do.' There were disappointments – parts that went to someone else, bad reviews – but you push them away. Friends help me get it in proportion.”
5. During this period of her career, she also starred in the classic sci-fi movie Logan's Run. 
Agutter plays Jessica 6 in the cult 1976 film about a utopian future society that isn't quite as idyllic as it seems. When she auditioned her original script for the movie in 2015, Agutter spoke proudly about Logan's Run, telling SciFiNow it was "a terrific film to have done." She also praised the movie for having "a kind of classic, almost old movie style to it."

6. She serves as an ambassador for British charity the Cystic Fibrosis Trust.
Agutter has personal experience with the progressive genetic disease. Sher shared her thoughts on the charity's website, saying, "My niece, Rachel, and my great-nephew, Albie, have cystic fibrosis. I know first-hand the impact this condition has, on families. The determination and resilience of the families I have met over the years continues to inspire me."
Agutter received an OBE honor from Queen Elizabeth II in 2012 for services to charitable causes.
7. She is not a great fan of the word "actress."
Agutter has said she finds the term "peculiar," saying in an interview with the The Church Times, "After all, you're a writer not a 'writeress.'"
She also pointed out that many of her female acting contemporaries are breaking boundaries by taking on roles traditionally reserved for men. "Making the distinction doesn’t even follow today," Agutter continued. "Think of Helen Mirren playing Prospero, and Glenda Jackson has just done King Lear. Nobody discussed her sexuality; they only talked about the poetry and emotion and how she put these across."
8. She's an Emmy and BAFTA award winner.
She won her Emmy in 1971 for her performance in The Snow Goose. She took on the role of an orphaned girl who befriends a lighthouse keeper (Richard Harris). Her BAFTA came six years later when she starred opposite Richard Burton and Peter Firth in Equus, the film adaptation of Peter Shaffer's play about a teenage boy who has been blinding horses. 

9. She has a clear stance when it comes to cosmetic surgery.
Namely, that it isn't for her, and she has always resisted it. "When I was in Hollywood a producer told me I should have the bags under my eyes done. I was very British and said no," Agutter told the Radio Times. "I know a couple of people who’ve had facelifts and it was terrifying: black and blue and swollen. It doesn’t do it for me. But men are conned into it, too. There’s an industry and it doesn’t end with women."
10. And finally, she's a fine reciter of poetry.
Last year, Agutter marked International Nurses Day by reading a poignant poem written by ICU nurse Stephanie Tonge. Titled "Four Walls," it's a powerful meditation of Tonge's experience working in hospital wards during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

What are your favorite Jenny Agutter roles?